


Lonely Ain’t Easy

by YamNyletak17



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 1940s, Crochet, F/M, Fanboy Phil Coulson, Marvel Universe, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 10:33:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15362631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YamNyletak17/pseuds/YamNyletak17
Summary: She doesn't look back at him, just hums a noise that sounds like an affirmative, and Steve is confused. Despite having saved New York together, him and Natasha don't really know each other. She owes him nothing, he expects nothing from her. He asks why."I know what it's like to have a past. And lonely ain’t easy, Rogers."





	Lonely Ain’t Easy

Steve Rogers was a sickly kid, quite often rendered unable to leave the house, sometimes even the bed. And Bucky, as much as he wanted to be, wasn’t around 24/7. He tried his damnedest, but sometimes his mom made him go to school even when Steve couldn’t, and he had to do some odd side jobs for old, widowed Mrs. Abbott in the apartment on the third floor because Steve and Sarah needed all the money he could make.

So sometimes, Steve was alone with Sarah, who couldn’t go to work because her son was wheezing in the too-hot apartment, and his fever hadn’t broken yet. Ever patient, Sarah would sit beside Steve in that old, squeaking rocking chair until he was well. She almost always spent that time crocheting something or another - cloths and blankets and hats and scarves - with the yarn scraps the kind old lady next door provided to the poor single mother. 

When he felt well enough, or had had enough of lying down, Steve sat up against thin pillows in bed and crocheted next to her. At first, he just chain stitched, over and over until he had three and four foot longs strings of multicolored yarn. When he started actually attempting to make things, he had trouble with the consistency of his gauge, and remembering what row he was on, so most things ended up shapeless and awkward rather than usable. Determined to get it right, he'd unravel his work and start again.

Eventually, Steve began to make thick, warm hats for Bucky to wear in the winter (he wore the red, grey, and black one with the awkward color changes even while camped out in the blustering Russian winters with the Commandos, after Steve's transformation) and soft, tightly stitched socks for the kid downstairs who always had holes in his. He made strange quilt/afghan hybrids by sewing whatever fabric scraps he could find to the back of his holey crocheted rectangles. His knobby fingers ached with the work, but he had to keep his mom warm, especially after she got sick and her form shivered in the unheated apartment.

He enjoyed the hobby, despite the fact that it became mindless, repetitive activity after awhile. It's one of the first self-serving things he does after he gets out of the ice, and is glad to see that it no longer makes his fingers ache like before, so he can sit and do it for hours without trouble, with soft swing music playing in the background. He asks Phil Coulson if, in the various belongings SHIELD had accumulated of his, if there is a well-worn red, black, and grey hat or a scrappy afghan.

"There isn't," Phil tells him apologetically. He knows for sure because he’s the one who catalogued everything they have that’s related to Steve or Bucky or the Howling Commandos when SHIELD switched to digital filing. There is an old rocking chair in storage at the Triskelion, though, if Steve is interested. Steve says he is, and despite his protests and insistence that he can drive to D.C. to pick it up himself, Coulson makes getting Steve that rocking chair a top priority. He sends Natasha Romanoff with it on a quintet, a major misuse of resources that has Steve embarrassed and the Black Widow severely underutilized.

He meets her on the roof of Headquarters just an hour later. She raises an eyebrow when he apologizes for the inconvenience, and tells her that he doesn't know why Coulson sent her of all people for a menial delivery.

"Coulson trusts me." She tells him, as if that was an explanation at all. And then, "I had to be in New York today anyways for a debriefing, Captain. Don't feel too special." 

He wonders if she always takes a quintet to briefings, or if this is a special instance. Either way, he feels too undeservedly privileged, but he doesn't say so. Instead he thanks her.

"Sure Rogers.” She motions for him to walk. “Let's drop it off in your room. I think you have to be in the same debriefing I do. You can walk me there afterwards." He nods once, smiles a little at her, and picks up the rocking chair. 

His quarters are still fairly standard issue. White walls and white linens, a clock and a record player on a bedside table, and a chair in the corner that he'll replace with his mom's. There's a shelf with sleeved vinyl, and a plastic tote filled with varying colors of yarn, with several sizes of crochet hooks thrown haphazardly on top. Some patterns are on the bedside table, the ones that Agent Phillips had been nice enough to teach him to look up and print out. Natasha raises that eyebrow again.

"You crochet?" She says, with curiosity in her voice. "Can't say I expected that one."

"My mom taught me." Steve says, a little defensively despite the fact Natasha didn't seem to be teasing him at all. Then calmer, "That was the chair she did it in." 

He looks at it, probably too hard. His eyes prickle, because the wood is peeling and it's chipped in places, and he wonders how that scorch mark on the right arm rest got there… It hadn’t been there when his mom died. The chair seems to be leaning to one side too much and Steve doesn't think it'll hold his weight, so he doesn't sit in it no matter how much he wants to. He can feel Natasha staring at him.

"Barton knows how to woodwork." She says, matter of fact despite how his face must look, wishing for the past to somehow come back. Wishing that the rocking chair held his mom, or Bucky, or Peggy. Someone he knew. Someone he loved.

Steve looks at Natasha, and she looks no different than usual. Still standing stick straight, hands behind her back. Her eyes aren’t cold exactly, but steely and rather unemotional. Probably how he looks when he's not heartbroken like he is now. 

"If I can take a picture of it, make note of its issues, I can ask him how we can fix it." 

"Sure." He says and takes to wiggling and running her fingers across century year old rickety wood. It finally hits him what she's said. "We?"

She doesn't look back at him, just hums a noise that sounds like an affirmative, and Steve is confused. Despite having saved New York together, him and Natasha don't really know each other. She owes him nothing, he expects nothing from her. He asks why.

"I know what it's like to have a past. And lonely ain’t easy, Rogers." She responds by way of explanation, despite the fact that he’s never mentioned how lonely he is, or how he yearns for one more day in 1945.

Natasha returns to his side with a note on her phone with several pictures of different angles of the chair and bullet points reading its damage.

"I'll talk to Clint about this after the debriefing. I'm in town for about a week. We'll start working tomorrow?" 

"Yes, ma'am." Steve returns, still confused, but grateful all the same. "I can teach you how to crochet in return."

"I'd be delighted to learn." She says, and she's not mocking him, but smiling more genuinely than he'd seen from her before. He hadn't know how he felt about Natasha before... He decides he likes her.


End file.
